Where Did Touma Go?
by Rowen Hashiba Of Tenku Co
Summary: Touma Has Comitted Suicide And Seiji Must Cope


Where Did Touma Go?  
By Seiji Date  
Prologue By Ryo Sanada  
Epilogue By Shin Mouri  
Epilogue 2 By Shuu Rei Faun  
  
  
PROLOGUE:  
It was sometime in early April when it happened. Touma Hashiba had committed suicide.  
We found out about an hour after it happened. When the hospital called with the news, I picked up. By the time I hung up, I was crying uncontrollably, sobs wracking my body. When Shin had asked what was wrong, I told him. He looked like he might cry, but was trying his very best not to, and told Shuu. He didn't tell Seiji yet. It was too soon. Seiji had been Touma's best friend... We couldn't.  
The question on everybody's mind was, Why? He was loved, and he didn't seem to have to many problems.  
Then Seiji came in.  
"What's wrong?" He asked. I looked up at him, not wanting to say. He met my gaze with suspicion.  
"N-nothing.." I tried to say, but he knew me better.  
"It's about Touma, isn't it? Something happened to Touma." Seiji surmised. Well, not for nothing did he get the Kanji of Wisdom.  
"Seiji... Touma comitted suicide, last night." Shin said gently. Seiji just stared at us, his visible eye wide, and I knew his other eye was just as wide.  
"No...." Seiji said softly, "No, Touma wouldn't do that."  
"Seiji...." Shuu whispered, putting a hand on Seiji's shoulder. Seiji flinched back, and ran up the stairs to his and Touma's room.  
We didn't see him for a week except for meals, and even during them he didn't eat much, and always excused himself early. He was getting thin, and looked worse each day. I know now that he was suffering from malnourishment.  
By the end of the week, Seiji was too weak, mentally and physically, to get out of bed.  
That's where this story starts.  
  
Where Did Touma Go?  
  
Shuu Rei Faun looked down at me, worried. I didn't know why. It was like I couldn't go on, couldn't cope with this. It was worse than death. In death I'd see Touma again.  
"Seiji?" He asked me. I open my eyes slowly as he put a hand on my shoulder.  
"Shuu, where's Touma?" I asked, and know that I sound like a child, but I don't care. Shuu's eyes almost close for a moment when my question reaches him. I would not give up. Touma was alive, somewhere. I just had to find him. I shed no tears, but I would not rest until Touma was found.  
"Seiji, he's gone...." Shuu whispered to me.  
"No he's not!" I cried, sitting straight up in the bed, anger making me strong.  
Shuu left silently then, probably getting Shin for emotional support.  
Despite being disoriented, I must have retained a little bit of the meaning of my Kanji, anyway, for only a moment later Shin came in, blue eyes a bit wide.  
"Shin.. Why are you here?" I asked him, not comprehending it at the time.  
"Seiji, I think you need to understand something..." I know what he's getting to, but don't believe it, "I hate to admit it as much as you do, but Touma is gone.. He can't come back, okay?"  
"No! He's alive! I can feel it...." I tell him. Shin's blue-green eyes widen. He's now concerned about my mental state, but I'm just fine.  
"Seiji, he's gone now.. You've got to accept that." Shin said, repeating what I'd been hearing for the entire morning so far.  
"I won't accept it.." I said defiantly, then added, "Because it's not true."  
"Seiji, please, please don't let yourself die too... Touma wouldn't want that." Shin explained to me. I don't understand. If Touma didn't want me to do something, why didn't he just come and tell me?  
"I want to be with Touma. If he's gone, then I want to be, too." I don't realize at the time how much younger I sounded then. I looked over to Touma's side of the room, which no one had touched since that fateful day one week ago.  
"Survive. We need you." Shin said simply, a single tear sliding down his cheek as he spoke. I didn't understand why he was crying at the time. I do now, but then I was painfully oblivious to my friend's emotions.  
I don't know why I resigned myself to live, maybe for Shin, Shuu, and Ryo, or maybe for Touma, but I did.  
Two weeks later, I had physically recouperated, but mentally was the same as before.  
"Hey Seiji." Shuu greeted me as I walked downstairs one morning. Everyone treated me like I was made of glass, so fragile was my mental state at that point. I just couldn't handle it if someone talked of Touma in the past-tense, like he was dead. I would yell at them, or retreat to my room. Usually only Shin could get me out of there when I went into my room and sat on Touma's old bed, acting like any minute he was going to come back and kick my sorry ass for being on his side of the room. I actually made myself believe that he would, if I sat there long enough.  
"Hi Shuu." I greeted half-heartedly, raising my hand weakly in what I hoped looked like a small wave.  
"You're up late again." Ryo told me. I shrugged. I hadn't really bothered to get up early like I had before lately, mainly because I had gotten up to meditate, and now I found myself unable to concentrate for very long.  
Later that day, I stood in the living room with Ryo, shouting at him.  
"Touma is NOT gone!" I shouted at him. He was angry, but sympathetic.  
"He's gone, Seiji. You just can't ACCEPT that!" He yelled. It was cruel of him to say that to me, but he was angry.  
I turned from him and bolted up the stairs to the room that I had once shared with Touma, and sat down on Touma's bed.  
"You are gone, aren't you Touma?" I asked no one, staring at the dark-blue pillow next to me on the bed, "You're really not coming back for me."  
I felt a sob escape me, more following. Touma was really gone, I knew now, and I couldn't handle it.  
The tears flowed freely now, and I cried all the tears I had been incapable of crying for the past three weeks.  
"Seiji, you gonna be okay?" A voice asked. I looked up, ashamed that someone had seen me crying. Shin stood in front of me, and put a hand on my shoulder.  
"I'll be fine." I said hoarsely, hardly aware that I had spoken.  
"You don't look like it." Shin told me seriously in his British accent.  
"You're right, you know." I told him, looking back down, embarressed.  
"I know." Shin said with a ghost of a smile, "You know Touma wouldn't want you to be sad."  
"Touma-chan isn't coming back, is he?"  
"I'm afraid not."  
"But I want him to come back."  
"We all do."  
"I miss him."  
"So do I."  
"But, I don't want it to be over. It can't.... We had so many plans..."  
"Like what?"  
"We were going to go camping in the summer, just us two, and swimming, and all kinds of things."  
"You can still do them."  
"It's not the same without Touma.."  
"What about me?" Shin asked with mock-hurt.  
"I guess... It's just not the same..." I answered.  
"We can get through this together." He replied to me, "The others want him back too. If we stick together we'll get through this."  
"You're right again."  
"Aren't I always?"  
"That's it, Fish Boy, you're going down!" I called chasing him down the stairs and around the house.  
  
=END=  
  
  
EPILOGUE:  
Well, I'm glad to report that everything's getting better now. Seiji and I took a visit to Touma-chan's grave last week, to give our final respects to one of our (and to Seiji, his) dearest friends.  
It is now late May, and we are in the process of getting up some dates for that camping trip, and we've already been swimming once, on a particularly hot day the week before last.  
Seiji has been trying very hard to recover mentally, and is coming a long way, but he is still a much more emotional person than he was, if only the fact that he shows it more when he is sad. He wept openly when we went to Touma's grave.  
As I look back on this, I realize that there was much more at work than there seemed. Touma had been Seiji's best friend, and I think I might be taking that place. Between Seiji and Shuu, I'm pretty sunk in the department of spare time! But it's not like I mind. Actually, I really like the attention!  
Anyway, in closing, I should probably just say that though this was a sad and sorry thing that never should have happened, I think that it strengthened us. I guess I'll let Shuu say a word or two, also.  
  
EPILOGUE 2:  
Well, okay, I guess I just wanted to get in my two-cents. I really think that this was a strange and sad thing, and it will take a long time for us to heal completely, especially Seiji, who only one month ago came to terms with the fact that Touma isn't coming back, no matter how many shooting stars we wished on. Seiji was hit the hardest by this, but we were all pretty badly burned by it, and those scars will be with us forever. I'll never forget the pain in Seiji's gray eyes when he asked me, "Shuu, where's Touma?". I'll never forget that moment, when he asked me the one simple question that made me so depressed that I needed to get Shin in there.  
I guess that's about it, though...  
  
  
~*From: Ryo Sanada, Seiji Date, Shin Mouri, and Shuu Rei Faun*~  
~*In Loving Memory Of Touma Hashiba*~ 


End file.
